New PC Freezing Every 5 Minutes

[whiffen]

O SHI, LOLOLOL.

...Yeah I probably should... :3

I kinda read, computer constantly restarts! some how. Then I realized the word was freeze not restart. Then began to bark instructions on freezing computers.

I APOLOGIZE FOR THIS AND WILL WORK ON IT TO BETTER MYSELF, READ THE OP READ THE OP READ THE OP!

[Tablespoon]

Any update on this?

[iamhoops]

Hey everyone, so I know it's been quite a while, but I've had a very busy summer and not much to report. After trying multiple things, including RMAing and replacing the RAM, I finally caved and went to the local Best Buy *cringe*. I just got off the phone with someone from Geek Squad who said that all the hardware passed all their tests, and he suspects that the processor is overheating and I need to reapply the thermaltake(?) gel to the processor.

I realize that this directly contradicts earlier findings in this thread where the processor temps seemed fine, but I'm wondering if anyone knows what the likelihood is that this is the problem. I would love to go pick it up, but I'd rather not have paid Best Buy $70.00 just to misdiagnose my problem. Any thoughts, anyone? Many thanks in advance!

[Terr]

I would emphasize that a high PSU wattage rating is generally a crappy metric driven higher and higher by marketing drones.

When it comes to powering video cards, how much it can give you on specific connections (aka "rails") is what really matters.

[Girphod]

What about the SATA controller drivers? A lot of problems can be caused by faulty SATA controllers that make the HDD seem to be the culprit. Even if you replaced the HDDs, the same thing would still happen.

I say this because I had a problem similar to yours where my computer would hang for several seconds every few minutes and the external hard drive would spin up, even when it wasn't being accessed. I thought the drive was going to fail and already had money set aside to replace it. Then in a final effort I reverted to the default Windows SATA controller drivers, the problem went away, and I saved myself $90.

[zombie@computer]

its quite easy to test if things are temp related (allthough low temps in bios are a good argument they arent the problem, you MIGHT just have a faulty temp sensor). Once the pc freezes, reset. PC should freeze again within a few seconds as temp doesnt decrease that fast. Oddly c2q's should clock down when overheating, not cause crashing. I dont know how this could be failing as well. To me, and to reiterate what has been previously mentioned, its quite unlikely temperatures are the problem if the pc starts to crash even during its first cold boot.

If we make a list of all possible subjects at this moment:
software - try booting from a linux cd to COMPLETELY write off software problems.
motherboard - i dont know what one can do to test a motherboard specifically, but if all fails, i guess this sucker is to blame
memory - ruled out by replacing dimms
cpu - Along with mobo, the last suspect.
psu - if properly tested by GS, which is a fairly standard test: ruled out
gpu - ruled out
hdd - ruled out
connections - did you completely disassemble and reassemble the pc? I once had a similar problem with an accidentally not fastened memory dimm. Even memtest said it was okay, but after fastening it some more my freezes went away... The only way to make sure you have fastened everything is be disassembling everything.